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Many mainstream teachers are apprehensive when they first have a student with a disability in their class, particularly if they have had limited personal or professional experience with disability. Teachers also do it tough when they are not given information about a student’s needs and learning style.
Some Australian education authorities require teachers to have done study about students with disabilities, and this certainly helps. However, even with this additional training, many teachers find it challenging to respond to the diversity of contemporary classrooms.
Using parents as resources
Although teachers teach students and not disabilities, it is important for legal and pedagogical reasons that teachers understand how a child experiences disability and how it may affect learning and teaching. Personal observation and reports from other teachers and specialists are useful but parents are often overlooked as a resource. Many parents have an encyclopaedic knowledge of syndromes, supports and child-centred information that will help teachers to be more effective with their child.
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Supporting teachers
Research has shown that school culture, policies and organisation have a huge impact on the quality of teaching and learning in mainstream schools. In situations where a principal models an inclusive approach it is more likely that teachers will be supported, and that resources will be found or reorganised. With appropriate levels of support, students with a disability get a fair go and the opportunity to participate ‘on the same basis’ as other students. This term—‘on the same basis’—is used 27 times in the Disability Standards for Education (2005). It means that opportunities for students with disabilities must be comparable to (but not necessarily the same as) those enjoyed by other students.
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Although the Disability Standards for Education (2005)—as subordinate legislation to the Disability Discrimination Act (1992)—are couched in legal terms, they contain many excellent pointers for teachers on how to include students with a disability. The standards can be found here.
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Most teachers prefer to make adaptations that suit the whole class, and many are reluctant to individualise programs or significantly reorganise how they teach. Teachers are also less inclined to change the curriculum content to suit individual students, preferring to assist all children to participate.
Although some students require an alternative curriculum, great care should be taken. While adapting the curriculum is an appropriate response in some situations, it may mean that a student is not challenged and/or becomes marginalised in class. Furthermore, unnecessary adaptation of curriculum may deprive a student of important learning opportunities.
What makes a great teacher?
Teachers who are good at including students with a disability in mainstream schools:
- focus on helping every student to ‘belong’, to have friends and to be involved in the life of the class
- use a wide range of strategies and teach in ways that are known to be effective for all students
- do not operate as ‘sole traders’ but involve other teachers, students, parents, volunteers and the whole school community in providing learning experiences
- systematically monitor the progress of all of their students
- plan thoroughly and are prepared to adapt to changing circumstances
- try different approaches and reflect on the results
- involve teaching assistants, mainly in indirect roles, and direct and monitor their work.
Perhaps the most striking feature of good teachers is that they view each of their students as having individual needs and teach accordingly: i.e. they provide support for all students, including those with a disability.
Tony Shaddock
School of Education & Community Services
University of Canberra
| Further reading |
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Early Childhood Australia sells several quality assured titles on caring for children with disabilities in school, in particular The ECE Inclusion Handbook, which is available for $54.95 from Early Childhood Australia's online catalogue.
or freecall 1800 356 900.
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